My 2014 predictions are finally complete. If Open Source equals collaboration or credibility, 2013 has been nothing short of spectacular. As an eternal optimist, I believe 2014 will be even better:

Big data’s biggest play will be in meatspace, not cyberspace. There is just so much data we produce and give away, great opportunity for analytics in the real world.

Privacy and security will become ever more important, particularly using Open Source, not closed. Paradoxically, this is actually good news as Open Source shows us again, transparency wins and just as we see in biological systems, the most robust mechanisms do so with fewer secrets than we think.

The rise of “fog” computing as a consequence of the Internet of Things (IoT) will unfortunately be driven by fashion for now (wearable computers), it will make us think again what have we done to give up our data and start reading #1 and #2 above with a different and more open mind. Again!

Virtualization will enter the biggest year yet in networking. Just like the hypervisor rode Moore’s Law in server virtualization and found a neat application in #2 above, a different breed of projects like OpenDaylight will emerge. But the drama is a bit more challenging because the network scales very differently than CPU and memory, it is a much more challenging problem. Thus, networking vendors embracing Open Source may fare well.

Those that didn’t quite “get” Open Source as the ultimate development model will re-discover it as Inner Source (ACM, April 1999), as the only long-term viable development model. Or so they think, as the glamor of new-style Open Source projects (OpenStack, OpenDaylight, AllSeen) with big budgets, big marketing, big drama, may in fact be too seductive. Only those that truly understand the two key things that make an Open Source project successful will endure.

AI recently morphed will make a comeback, not just robotics, but something different AI did not anticipate a generation ago, something one calls cognitive computing, perhaps indeed the third era in computing! The story of Watson going beyond obliterating Jeopardy contestants, looking to open up and find commercial applications, is a truly remarkable thing to observe in our lifespan. This may in fact be a much more noble use of big data analytics (and other key Open Source projects) than #1 above. But can it exist without it?

Finally, Gen Z developers discover Open Source and embrace it just like their Millennials (Gen Y) predecessors. The level of sophistication and interaction rises and projects ranging from Bitcoin to qCraft become intriguing, presenting a different kind of challenge. More importantly, the previous generation can now begin to relax knowing the gap is closing, the ultimate development model is in good hands, and can begin to give back more than ever before. Ah, the beauty of Open Source…

The insurance industry is continuously looking for the simplest, most efficient method of providing consumers with the best service, while at the same time trying to reduce overall operating expenses. While insurance providers explore the right options for their business, one thing is certain, cloud-based environments are low-risk solutions that enable applications to increase business value. From Cisco research, we know that running desktop applications in the cloud can be attractive because it reduces complexity and increases security.

Aside from the insurance industry, other financial services institutions struggle to find a business structure that provides the desired flexibility and market savings necessary to provide excellent customer service. However, with the help of cloud computing and unified communications, these challenges are being overcome. Due to recent success and proven low-risk functionality, insurers are gradually adopting cloud solutions to help guide business operations and initiatives. In fact, Gartner is predicting that the cloud system infrastructure market to grow by 47.8% through 2015. Read More »

The road in my picture below – the A82 that winds through Glencoe in Scotland – was used in the James Bond “Skyfall” movie in one of the amazing car chase scenes. This road winds through sparsely inhabited territory, has lots of ups, downs, bumps and turns and if you’re not careful it can be a dangerous road. I’ll draw the analogy here with the challenges of introducing new technologies: there can be ups, downs, bumps and turns into the unknown, if you are not careful. And in my case here, I’ll use this analogy to illustrate the challenges of adopting OpenStack: without the right kind of approach, without a carefully managed exploratory “pilot” investigation and subsequent roadmap planning, you may find that adopting OpenStack – or any other open source software solution, for that matter – has its share of challenges, ups, downs, bumps and turns into the unknown.

In three short years OpenStack has become cloud management platform that is “Too Big to Fail” (according to Citi Research). Whether it is true or not, OpenStack is definitely gaining traction and is making a profound impact not only as a viable Cloud management option, but also on the software economics for Cloud solutions.

Cloud computing is rapidly transforming businesses and organizations by providing access to flexible, agile, and cost-effective IT infrastructure. These elastic capabilities help accelerate the delivery of infrastructure, applications, and services with the right quality of service (QoS) to increase revenue. Cisco’s approach—innovative and unified data center infrastructure that provides the underlying foundation for OpenStack technology—enables the creation of massively scalable infrastructure that delivers on the promise of the cloud.

Cisco Common Cloud Architecture built on Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) with OpenStack provides the foundation for flexible, elastic cloud solutions enabling speed and agility. As the saying goes “Every Skyscraper is built on a strong foundation of pillars”, the OpenStack platform requires the core requirements from the underlying infrastructure – simplification, rapid provisioning, self-service consumption model, and elastic resource allocation. Cisco UCS uniquely provides a policy based resource management model, which simplifies by integrating compute, networking and storage with the ability to scale and automate deployment.

This foundation addresses every stage of cloud deployment be it private or public cloud offerings. Some of primary workloads targeted for OpenStack based deployments are:

Self-service development and test environments

Massively scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions

High-performance, scale-out storage

Web server, multimedia, big data, and cluster-aware applications

Applications with extensive computing power requirements and mixed I/O workloads

To accelerate these cloud infrastructure deployments, Cisco has developed starter configurations focused on compute-intensive, mixed or heterogeneous and storage-intensive workloads. The various server nodes are typically sized to include the OpenStack controller, compute, Ceph storage, Swift proxy and Swift storage.

Scaling beyond 160 servers can be implemented by interconnecting multiple UCS domains using Nexus 3000/5000/6000/7000 Series switches, scalable to thousands of servers and to hundreds of petabytes storage, and managed from a single pane using UCS Central in a datacenter or distributed globally as shown in figure.

Trust is built with consistency. This axiom is certainly true of Cisco’s credibility with customers in the cloud computing space, where Cisco is investing to ensure enterprise customers are able to rapidly build private clouds, or to procure Cisco Powered cloud services from our Cloud Service Provider partners, who, in turn, are using Cisco technology to build their public clouds.

Recognition of our consistency in the cloud market is reflected in multiple ways, including third party corroboration. To that end, Cisco’s momentum in the cloud market is illustrated by findings from three industry analyst reports:

After being named the number 1 company customers used most often for professional services related to cloud in an IDC survey of US customers earlier this summer, Cisco was recently named a global “Major Player” the first time we were invited to participate in IDC’s MarketScape Report, Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2013 Vendor Analysis. And the latestQ2 data from Synergy Research Group shows that Cisco continues to maintain a number 1 position in the Cloud Infrastructure Market.

“After steadily and consistently building its share in this market, Cisco has done well to hold onto its newly-won lead,” said Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s founder and Chief Analyst.

This strong combination of leadership in cloud infrastructure and in cloud professional services underscores Cisco’s commitment to consistently deliver businesses the foundation to deploy differentiated cloud services at a lower business risk.

No one can argue that cloud computing is accelerating IT business value, and cloud technology investments are increasing at a rapid pace in nearly every industry segment. At Cisco, we remain committed to maintaining our consistency in delivering what our customers require. A big part of that commitment is enabling IT to aggregate, integrate, customize, and deliver an expanded set of services to the business utilizing a mix of Cisco-enabled private cloud services and Cisco Powered public cloud services, paving the way to a hybrid cloud sourcing strategy for customers.

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